1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user interface for use in editing and verification of data, and, more particularly, to a user interface for use in editing and verifying data values wherein a format encoding is used for the values in the user interface to reflect characteristics of the underlying data used to populate the user interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
A DBMS (Database Management System) is used to manage data and is comprised of computer-executable code that may be used to define the structure of data and to access data within the defined structure. One example of a DBMS is a relational DBMS, or RDBMS. An RDBMS manages tables that make up a relational database as well as the data contained in the tables. In an RDBMS, data is organized in rows (or records) and columns (or fields) of the tables, and two or more tables may be related based on like data values. The intersection of a row and column in a table is referred to as a cell and contains the data value for a particular field of a particular record.
A DML (data manipulation language) such as SQL (Structured Query Language) is typically used to store, retrieve and modify data in a table. A schema defines the structure of a database, i.e., each table and the fields within a record of a table. A schema is itself considered data that is stored in one or more tables. Therefore, like other data in a database, a DML may be used to store, retrieve and modify the data in the database as well as the structure of a database.
Most database management systems use convenient data entry forms to allow a user to add or modify a single database record at a time. A problem arises when attempting either to edit multiple records simultaneously or to verify that a particular field has the same data value in a large number of records.
The traditional method of adding or modifying records in an RDBMS is to use a data entry form to view and edit a single record at a time, where each field in the database corresponds to a single field in the form. When adding a new record, the fields in the form are empty, to be filled in from scratch by the user. When modifying an existing record, the RDBMS places the existing values of the record into each of the fields of the form, and any or all of them can be modified by the user.
Some systems extend this scheme to allow the user to indicate that a change to the value in a particular field be further applied to all of the records in a previously selected set of records. A problem is that the single control for each field in the data entry form can display only a single value at a time, which makes it impossible for the user to easily determine before applying the change whether or not the existing data values for the field are all the same across the entire set of records.
Many systems allow the user to view and edit multiple records simultaneously by offering a row/column tabular view of the records in a table. The advantage of this approach is that multiple values for each field can be displayed simultaneously, and the user can quickly eyeball all the values for a field across the entire set of records by examining the contents of a particular column.
An advantage of this approach is that multiple values for each field can be displayed simultaneously, and the user can quickly view all the values for a field across the entire set of records by examining the contents of a particular column.
This approach works well when the number of records is small. When the number is larger than what can be displayed on a computer monitor at the same time, the user must browse through the entire record set. When the number of records is very large (for example, hundreds or even thousands of records), browsing through the record set is impractical and, for all intents and purposes, may be impossible.
Thus, it would be beneficial to have a mechanism to edit and/or verify any size or amount of data that may or may not include diverse data values while minimizing the need to browse through an entire record set to identify data values.